This is a continuation-in-part application of the patent application filed 13 Jan. 2000 as Ser. No. 09/482,415, entitled “System for Acquiring Data from a Facility and Method”.
This invention relates to a system for obtaining pressure, flow and temperature data from one or more facilities. More particularly, but not by way of limitation, the invention relates to a system having one or more instruments that collect, process and store measurements of pressure, flow and temperature and relays data to a remotely located network data receptor series, where for example it may be accessed by multiple users.
In the production of oil and gas from subterranean reservoirs, operators have found it necessary to complete wells in many remote regions. In order to produce, transport and refine hydrocarbons, it is necessary to construct production facilities at these remote regions. Due to the hazardous nature of hydrocarbons, it is necessary to employ various safety features in all phases of the process to ensure against pollution, explosion, and other safety hazards.
Operators find it beneficial, if not necessary, to monitor pressure, temperature, flow rates, etc from these oil and gas facilities. The reasons for monitoring are numerous. For instance, the operator may wish to test the producing well in order to calculate bottom hole pressure, permeability, skin damage, etc. Additionally, the operator may simply wish to monitor the pressure within separators, pipelines and/or vessels to maintain proper working conditions. Regardless of the specific application, there is a need to accurately monitor conditions at the oil and gas facility in a timely manner.
It is furthermore desirable to provide a system for the monitoring of conditions at a number of individual oil and gas facilities, which may be geographically spread over a given region, to permit a broad assessment of overall conditions in the production facility or region.
Prior art devices have been designed to remotely communicate with oil and gas facilities. For instance, Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems have been developed to monitor and communicate with these remote areas. However, these SCADA systems suffer from a variety of deficiencies.
A significant deficiency is related to the inherent limitations of the Master-Slave communication protocol that is employed by SCADA systems. The Slave must be always powered-up waiting for the call from the Master. And when the Master calls, the Slave must immediately respond to the Master to minimize the time Master spends with the Slave.
Further, prior art systems communicate from a limited number of oil and gas facilities to a single monitoring station which in turn relays information to a central control station. This architecture is necessary since the Master monitoring station must poll each Slave Field location individually to prevent communication collisions.
Another limitation in current practice is the accuracy of pressure measurement, which is impaired by ambient temperature fluctuations. This accuracy limitation reduces the effectiveness in many process monitoring applications that depend on measurement stability, such as process simulation or process accounting.
A further limitation of current practice is the elaborate installation requirements that result from the physical size, number of components and complex interconnections that are needed to implement each field location with a remote measurement system.
Therefore, there is a need for a system and method that can capture, store and process accurate pressure, flow and temperature data, and communicate this data in a more flexible manner to a local computer and/or remote server. There is also a need for a system that will allow for users to access data from multiple remote locations on an as needed basis. Further, there is a need for a system that can alert remote users of predetermined alarm conditions in an efficient and timely manner. There is also a need in many practical applications for improved pressure measurement accuracy and stability compared to what is achieved using current practice. There is also a need for an instrument that can work in an oil and gas environment without fear of explosion. There is also a need for an instrument that integrates many of the measurement system components into a single, compact package to simplify installation. These, and many other needs, will be accomplished by the invention herein described.